meeting we don't have %back always have access to it. we ask you to bring those documents to share with us. if you want, i will keep roberta boom irtied up at sunshine task force meetings for years unless you include us in the process more. i'm going to be sun shining all of the documents. i want to see emails from all of you from now on, because i'm tired of only seeing miss brinkman, tom nolan and mr. heinicke as the om ones participating in what creates taxi issues. i have seen nothing yet from what you guys have done or participated in. you need to come to town hall meets and need more input and honest debate and honest discourse what is going on. in closing, an email from tom nolan, many of the tax recommendaces were incorporated into the staff recommendations over the past few years.

few years the taxes only existed two years. less than two years. i know that some may feel that the work was i ignored. please know that the board and staff appreciated and benefited by the work. thank you, mr. paul ryan. thank you. >> next speaker. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> mr. lawrence. >> ladies and gentlemen of audience and commissioners, thank you for letting me speak once again. very briefly, i would like to bring up an issue that i think one of the -- i'm not sure which one of you brought it up. but anyway, the issue of sharing a cab, like in washington, d.c.. i picked up a man from washington, d.c. last week and he said since january they recognized the gridlock problem and instituted one extra dollar per passenger and one extra

dollar per bag. washington, d.c. has recognized the problem with taking one cab per passenger, because that is what they do at ffo. there is a shortage of cabs at peak time, because every one person getting in one cab. they share cabs. you have three passengers plus the main guy is $4, on top of the gate which is $3.50 and five bags, $5 more in the trunk that. should be instituted in san francisco as well. it will solve a big problem with peak -time cabs. i recall the 500 cabs put on the streets in 1999, during the so-called dot com bubble. my income dropped 65% and never came back. during 2003, during the recession, it dropped again and never came back. ed for for the city to compensate for the income of taxi drivers you have to raise the meter five times and every time a cab company sits in the

background and says we want to raise the gates too. you have to raise the meter and no taxi cab driver in this city has any benefits whatsoever with that raise of the gate. and i think looking at that in a long-term position would help the problem with gridlock, the shortage of cabs, by making it almost mandatory, two people going to the same destination should share a cab. it's also cheaper for them. thank you for your time. >> thank you, sir. >> hanso kim. eric williams. >> good afternoon directors. i want to talk about a few different topics in public comment. the first i want to reinforce something i mentioned in the past. one of our problems that we have with service we're not maximizing the efficiency of the existing number of medallions now in service. only half of the 1500 or so medallions right now are actually doing all the dispatch orders. so right now half of

the medallions right now in service are at companies just doing flags and airports. and so if we create a standard to make sure that these medallions have to be going to companies that have certain dispatch standards, you will create a situation when the drivers come up to you say and say we don't have orders. guess what? i have plenty of orders for my drivers at companies. so i say to those drivers at these companies, if you are a good, safe driver, come over to desoto cab, i will have [phrao-epbts/] of work for you. second, i want to talk a little bit about the taxi advisory council. i feel that you have an opportunity and i know your priorities are about the public first, but the taxi industry can really be giving you some great advice if we had a really functioning taxi advisory council to really listen to. quite frankly, the industry feels that the taxi advisory council is something of a distraction, go play in your

sandbox and we'll do what we want. a good example of that, there was a unanimous vote that had a new medallion holder buying a medallion for $250,000 should not pay a 20% fee, that was appropriate for someone who got a medallion under prop k and guess what happened? the plan that you put out here said we're going to charge a 30% fee. yes, you lowered it down to 30%, but i want to tell you that the tami council voted unanimously it was not appropriate for someone buying a medallion for several thousands of dollars. lastly, i want to talk about the serious issue of these other on-demand services that are now proliferating in the city. we must do something about it. there is going to be crimes and there is going to be assaults when we don't know who is picking up the public. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> peter witt. >> ed haley.

mark gruburg. >> i'm sorry, mr. healy is here. >> i'm beginning to sound like peter witt. i started out as a -- i started out as an inter center person, negotiating in the original pilot plan. i'm a very moderate and practical individual and the city did a great thing a couple of years ago when it didn't do that pilot plan. all of the members of community came together, regardless of their political leanings and made a plan that benefited everybody. and you people have basically taken that plan and thrown it in the trash. we had -- you mentioned transparency. there used to be tranceparency a couple of years ago there was transparency and now you are having meetings without any involvement of the cab drivers.

you are judging by reading mr. -- or director's heinicke mail. you had the plan you put into effect two weeks ago. you had it without ever discussing it with the person you put it together behind closed doors and i believe in violation of the sunshine ordinance. i believe that you violated your own rules. you violated the rules of the city and you violated the rules of state of california in order do what? you don't even know what you are doing. you are so full of sanctimonious language, like what is that? the public good? that you are not even paying attention to the details of what you are doing. details of what you are doing is basically putting a couple hundred people into poverty, if they don't get those medallions. they are too old to do anything else. that is the one concrete you are doing and it's the public. the public. the public good. that is fine with me. i would like to see you return

to actual transparency. in the meantime, it looks like ned ford has never left. thank you very much. next speaker. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> mark gruberg, thank you again. to follow-up on ed's remarks, blinded by self-interest, i think you just focused like a laser beam on your own financial self-interest as an agency. and you are just not getting the picture. i sent you a letter last week, about the driver fund. you know, a lot is said here in public comment and maybe you missed some of it. i hope you weren't missing what i was saying at the last meeting that what you did was it absolutely gut the drivers'

fund, take virtually every penny out of the drivers' fund for the next possibly 20 or 30 years and appropriate that money for yourself, because instead of 15% and 5%, it's 20% to the agency. and you know, i can't imagine more -- you know, kind of a heartless thing to do to bolster your bottom line by this additional amount at the expense of the only, only, only, only thing in the medallion sales program that was going to help the driver, who won't have a medallion, will never have a medallion in his life. or maybe will spend 20 years in the industry before ever getting a medallion. so please, please, please, please revisit this. i don't know what else to say about that.

on these alternate car services, they are providing taxi service. but stp if something happens in that cab and is lift going to solve their problem? no, who do they turn to? where do they go? these are unregulated vehicles. have to do something about this. put them off the street. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> i second everything that mark gruberg just said, by as far as large-capacity vehicles going the only hybrid six-passenger van commonly available is the toyota

sienna, which is prohibitive getting new. one thing has been the situation of the traffic at 3rd and market. it impacts all the way up 3rd street, and all the way -- i'm talking about inbound market and then northbound 3rd. can i get the screen? i'm sorry that my ipad has very, very small picture. info services, can you get the projector? what do we say? oh, there we go. it's even worse -- it's very difficult to see here. this is just not going to be good. anyway, this is market street. inbound. and this is 3rd street. i suggest that to make traffic flow better, the problem is

that people very desperately cross 3rd street an market and then the light turns on them. they block the box all day long. also, on 3rd street, if you could shave this sidewalk just a couple of feet, at this apex here, you would take it so that people turning and also muni buses don't have to take up part of the next lane to get around that particular corner. also, you will notice how badly striped it is. the striping really does not indicate where people need to go as they cross. striping is non-existent here. it's very difficult to follow here. and it doesn't follow traffic patterns. this needs to be logically restriped and not just restriped. there needs to be a sign here saying -- >> thank you. >> i'm out of time.

>> yes. >> don't lock the box or have traffic control people there. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> thank you for letting me speak again. i just wanted to clarify, some people misunderstood my comments about the waiting list. that i do believe in the waiting list. and i think medallions should go to the waiting list. some of you may agree, some of you may not. but i wanted to make sure that that is clearly understood. and that is how i feel. so i just wanted to say that. the other thing that i wanted to say about uber and i appreciated all of our comments about uber cab. the one thing that uber is doing is picking up people off the streets. as far as their other business, that is another discuss. i have called eric five times a

night, seeing people lean into the window of a town car cab, how much? making a deal and probably getting charged more than i would charge them. and getting in the cab. and that is illegal. and i wish you guys could hire more people to do what eric does. i think he works with somebody else. but that really -- that is a big thing and the illegal cars. i called them the other day with a guy who isn't a cab, but has one painted like a cab. the last item that i want to say that i ride orders. in other words, it will be far away from where i am and i will go for it, you know? and sometimes, there are times that they give me the phone number and i will actually be able to talk to the passenger that i'm picking up. it's and very, very helpful. it would be great if there was a law that we could have the

phone number. because if i speak to somebody and say hi, i'm brian. i'm cab 998 and i'm going to come and get you. just wanted to let you know, please don't take another cab. i'm on my way. they will wait. so if that could be implemented, it would be really good. >> thank you. >> tom lee. barry corngold. >> followed by peter witt. >> okay. good afternoon, mr. chairman and members. san francisco is a very, very busy city and we're living in expensive san francisco. people are paying high money to sit in a cab. they should get a cab as quickly as possible. the best service to the public is that cabbie should right away -- but we have 1500 legal taxis. another 1500 illegal taxis, but they are choosing the busy time to come out. it's not everyday at any time.

this is the real effect. so add 200 cabs more is providing another 600 jobs for the gate and gas drivers. it's a very good thing. i would like to see the drives get shifts and support their family and pay their bills. but the actual cost of rung the business in the taxi is $50 a day only $50 by the car for insurance. it's $50 a day and now you are going to charge $1900 a month. so you should make your taxi policy as parallel to the cab company and driver, because you should give half of the medallion leased to the cab driver, who would like to lease. especially maybe two or three drivers coming to our office and pay the money to mta. you should give your medallion, half of them should go to the cab driver nortto support the

driver and not overchexing to the overwhelming to the cab company. we have a lot of drivers would are very upset because they pay $150 a shift, overcharging to get a guest to drive the cab. i hope you consider leasing tot to the cab drivers as well. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> mr. corngold. >> hi. i'm barry corngold. i want to comment on how appalled i was and surprised at the lack of discussion before last meeting's vote on the medallion reform plan. in particular, vice-chair brinkman said that this has been looked at and underway for

a long time. that you have -- that you have enough informing have looked at it enough and in the next following sentence you proceeded to show that you don't understand the concept of the waiting list or the issue with it. such as the people waiting 15, 20 years and sluging it out the of this time at very low-income and having to work hard shift where's there is nobody there. they finally are ready to get their medallion and it's not going to be worth it for them to buy it. you are telling them that okay, at least you have the opportunity to buy it if you are on the list. it makes no sense. everybody on the list gets a medallion -- i mean the medallions don't get sold to anybody who is not on the list and the people at the top of the list, it's not worth it for them to buy it most of the time because they are too old. they are been doing this for 20, 30 years already. so you need to to explore this a little further. and then as i said before,

barry toronto shared some of the emails with me, that he obtained through the public records act. and i was appalled at the disrespect given to the cab drivers and all the meetings that we have been going to through the years. it did consider the needs of public and the agency, it gave $10 million a year to the agency. and what is wrong with appeasing -- you are talking as if we are the enemy. what is wrong with listening tot cab drivers, who have been addressing these concerns? >> thank you. >> peter witt. last speaker. >> okay.

>> thank you for waiting. if your camera could get me center, i would like to see that. this is the data that has been collected over the years and i submitted to the taxi commission and taut for the last four years. i believe mr. reiskin you are involved in the last survey here this. is this year's survey i gave you last month. mid-last month, 2012 survey, 1,000 customers. pretty much it was all anecdotal testimony and, in fact it was all anecdotal testimony. you know, i would prefer to work analytically and i prefer government to work analytically, rather then through warm and fuzzy

feelings, mr. reiskin. i have your requirements for your job, which is supposed to be to is collect data, relevant data and store it and then it would be ideal if you actually administered it or you know, spread it around and let the people look at. it because you know, he believe your it people haven't looked at it yet. i got an email the 15th by carol from the quarry galinas people who are doing your current study and i was asked a few questions, but i find it a little bit odd, because i was also told i would be a paid consultant. unfortunately, i missed my day and said it would end the end of august. so they had done their little focus group and i missed out on it. it's unfortunate, but i'm not an avid email reader.

thank you. >> anyone else wishing to address public comment? seeing none, next item. >> moving on to item 10 -- these are consent calendars matters to be considered routine unless a member of public asked an item be considered separately. there is a question for l, m and n to be considered separately and 10.2l by a member of public? >> removing those, is there a motion to approve the cardinal. consent calendar? >> aye. >> david silverglide. >> item l is in regards to changing the signage between

sampson and montgomery, reichert now it's a urban oasis, very nice trees and thousands of people that eat lunch, that walk and enjoy the sunshine, which is a rarity in the financial district. unfortunately the dpw made a mistake and issue arid food truck permit on commercial street in the middle of this pedestrian zone. and the applicant didn't inform dpw it was a pedestrian zone and parking was illegal. so for months the truck parked illegally, right in the middle of pedestrian zone in the middle of thousands of people enjoying the little bit of green space in the middle of the financial district. so to rectify the situation, the dpw has asked that we just change the parking regulations and allow trucks that have dpw permits to park in the middle of pedestrian zones. i own a business that is on this pedestrian zone and we fought very hard to have this pedestrian zone and create this place. we serve thousands of

restaurant customers with outdoor tables and chairs and permits for those and we have people who enjoy coming there. now we have a truck in the mill of it, which is bad for a lot of reasons and should be there. it's bad for the pedestrians. we have generator noise from the truck in the middle of a pedestrian zone and engine noise in the middle of a pedestrian zone. it's dangerous. there is no enforcement when the truck comes and goes and the truck can move feel freely if they come later or early. we all know what happened to the santa monica's farmers market, where we had a truck/vehicle move into a pedestrian zone and cause a bad accident. it's not good to mix cars and pedestrian zones. there is no parking enforcement because mta vehicles cannot get in there to check. the meter is almost never fed during this period of time. so we would really like to make sure we keep this a pedestrian zone. we don't need themate cleaning up dpw's mistakes.

they should not have issued a permit where there is a pedestrian zone. you should not be cleaning up their mess incorrectly. do not let this get changed. >> you are speaking to l? >> yes. >> and matthew wexler is the next member of public and he is the last member of the public who submited a speaker card. >> good afternoon. >> my name is matthew wexler, i'm the owner of the food truck that has the permit from the department of water to park on commercial street. we went through all the proper steps that we were required of us by the department of public works to get our permit. it's opened up a couple of months now. i'm an existing parts of the neighborhood. we had a restaurant in that same building for a little over three years now. and we have been nothing, but, i think, a great part of the neighborhood and in addition, to the neighborhood.

and our food truck has been a welcomed extension of our restaurant by customers that we have had and new customers as well. we don't run our engine during the middle of service. we're parked with the car off and we are providing something that is adding to what the city looks for in the alley ways which is providing foodservice and creating that kind of leisurely atmosphere that in downtown san francisco. we follow all safety precautions. we certainly don't take -- we never put anyone in a situation where they would be in danger of the trucks not moving. it's parked and all it's doing is serving food during the time that we're there. we're regulated when we can serve food in the street. just like anyone else is. and we have a regulated perform by the department of water for

when we can be there and when we can't about there and when we can operate and when we can't operate and we followed all of those rules since we first opened. >> thank you, sir. >> can i ask you a clarifying question? >> sure. >> i'm just looking at commercial street on google map. the area where your truck is parked, is it in this sort of -- i guess it's a loading zone area? where the sidewalk kind of curves in. >> correct, 565 commercial is where we're permitted by the department of water to park, which is the address. >> you are in 5900 block? 500 block? >> correct almost at the corner of commercial and monorail. montgomery. >> it's narrow, but the roadway widens at a certain

point? >> yes. >> thank you for that clarification. director lee? >> yes, l, m and n. >> you don't have a concern about commercial street? >> no. hold on one sec. >> it's k, isn't it? ortega is l and m? >> commercial is l on my sheet. >> i have commercial as k. >> i do, too. >> i do, too. no wonder we're confused. >> well, let's stick with

commercial street and i have no issues with commercial street. my question is that both of these folks are well-spoken members of the business community. who i suspect are trying to do the right thing by their customers. what is the feedback of the neighborhood? does the neighborhood want it? does the office building love it or hate it? if this was one of our neighborhood issues we would know what the people on this block think, so why don't we find out. >> good afternoon, sustainability streets division. i think the matter has been explained by both parties in that this is a street closed to vehicular traffic between the hours of 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.i have a photo of the food truck, if you want too see it. when the street was originally closed it was typically closed for tables and chairs, but now that there